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Background: Effective Communication is a fundamental skill for practice across health care settings and is a component of undergraduate nursing programs around the world. Resource materials appropriate for the teaching of communication in an Asian context are lacking. Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of a self-developed video using role play in facilitating teaching and learning associated with therapeutic communication. Methods: Videos were produced which demonstrated the fundamental communication skills of listening, understanding, exploring and comforting/supporting, using role play. These were shown to Year 1 nursing students in tutorials over four weeks. Their usefulness was evaluated using a self-developed questionnaire. Among 74 questionnaires distributed at the end of the fourth tutorial, 72 were returned, with a 97% response rate. Results: Most students agreed that the video clips provided useful examples for role-playing the communication skills (89%), helped trigger them to perform role-playing (74%), were useful to improve understanding of different communication skills (93%) and helped them learn from other students' role-playing performance (87%). Overall impression of using the videos in the tutorial teaching was very useful (27%) and useful (68%). Conclusions: Most students valued the videos developed purposely for teaching therapeutic communication and recommended that the videos be used in the future. Using video role plays facilitated the teaching and learning process and enhanced undergraduate nursing students' understanding and application of communication skills. More video clips will be developed in the future, with improved quality and with a broader range of health care communication scenarios demonstrated in order to be used more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, nurses and physicians are the main care providers for people with schizophrenia. This care is provided primarily in institutions because community services are in their infancy, and families carry the burden of care. In the absence of published nursing research in the area, this article reports the rigorous development and evaluation of a culturally sensitive patient/family intervention, which was implemented in a large psychiatric hospital in Beijing, China. A random sample of 15 nurses responded to an open-ended questionnaire to explore what they believed people with schizophrenia and their family members should learn. A convenience sample of 51 family members who lived with a person with schizophrenia were also interviewed to explore what they understood and needed to know about schizophrenia. Common learning needs were integrated with the literature and presented as the Comprehensive Patient/ Family Education Guide, which was implemented with an experimental group of 42 family members, while a control group of 45 received the usual hospital treatment. The effect of the intervention was evaluated by interviewing a random sample of 19 of the family members. The results revealed some useful information for the future planning and implementation of such programs, and although focused on a Chinese sample, do offer insights for nurses around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

lai c.k.y. & arthur d.g. (2003) Journal of Advanced Nursing 44(2), 173–182 Wandering behaviour in people with dementia Wandering has been described as one of the most challenging behaviours to manage and yet a search of the literature in the last two decades yields only a limited number of papers that specifically studied wandering. This paper reviews the current literature on wandering in relation to the nature of the phenomenon, attempts to classify the behaviour, the extent of the problem, the profile of those who wander, postulations about its aetiology, and intervention strategies being employed. Eight literature databases were searched for the last 40 years up to February 2003 using ‘wandering’ and ‘dementia’ as combined keywords. A total of 133 articles was included in the review. The prevalence of wandering behaviour was difficult to assess and no conclusions could be reached. The typical wanderer depicted in the literature was relatively young in the older population, more cognitively impaired, more likely to be a man, might have experienced sleep problems, had a more active premorbid lifestyle, and used more psychotropic medications. While studies agreed that wanderers are more cognitively impaired, their findings did not necessarily agree on other attributes. Three major approaches, namely the biomedical, psychosocial and person–environment interaction perspectives, in conceptualizing wandering behaviour can be identified from the literature. Medications, activity programmes, behavioural modification and environmental manipulation have been used as interventions but none has so far demonstrated unequivocal effectiveness. Knowledge generated through research remains insufficient to explain fully why and when wandering occurs. Variability in how the phenomenon was defined and studied, and the small size of the samples made generalizability of findings difficult. Future research should incorporate a clearer definition of wandering; a specific targeted population with representative sample size; appropriate subject identification strategies; focussed interventions, and better control conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, nurses and physicians are the main care providers for people with schizophrenia. This care is provided primarily in institutions because community services are in their infancy, and families carry the burden of care. In the absence of published nursing research in the area, this article reports the rigorous development and evaluation of a culturally sensitive patient/family intervention, which was implemented in a large psychiatric hospital in Beijing, China. A random sample of 15 nurses responded to an open-ended questionnaire to explore what they believed people with schizophrenia and their family members should learn. A convenience sample of 51 family members who lived with a person with schizophrenia were also interviewed to explore what they understood and needed to know about schizophrenia. Common learning needs were integrated with the literature and presented as the Comprehensive Patient/Family Education Guide, which was implemented with an experimental group of 42 family members, while a control group of 45 received the usual hospital treatment. The effect of the intervention was evaluated by interviewing a random sample of 19 of the family members. The results revealed some useful information for the future planning and implementation of such programs, and although focused on a Chinese sample, do offer insights for nurses around the world.